All week, I’ve been haunted by the family separations at the US border. The reports are chilling: Children taken screaming from their parents’ arms. The siblings separated in their camps and instructed not to hug or touch each other. The babies and toddlers taken to Tender Age shelters cared for by strangers. Who will help those babies sleep at night? I wondered. How can any of us sleep at night?

Thinking about being separated from my own toddler makes me physically ill. I’m not exaggerating to say that if my children were taken away from me and I didn’t know their fate, it would be nearly impossible for me to function. I know many parents feel the same way.

Although it appears that Trump has signed an executive order to end migrant family separation, as I write this there is no plan for reunification of the 2300 kids being held in camps without their parents right now.

Lawyers in the US report that reunifying parents with their children is proving to be a logistical nightmare.

Some of these children may never see their parents again. The parents who made the heartbreaking decisions to leave their home countries (riddled with gang violence and poverty) to make dangerous treks to the US border.

The parents who did this all in the false hope of an America that no longer exists — the land of opportunity that has turned callous and cold. It is now a land that punishes people who have the audacity to hope for a violence-free, poverty-free life for their children — and treats them with disdain when they ask to be let in.

I cannot think of anything else this week than the issue of separating a child from his or her parents.

Indeed, I am also reflecting on our own country’s abysmal history and present practice of taking Indigenous children away from their parents. (See Kent Monkman’s epic, devastating painting “The Scream” for a visual portrayal of the state removing Indigenous children to take them to residential schools.)

Residential schools are in the past, people say. And you’ll hear the argument that foster homes are better than internment camps. And yes, there are wonderful, well-meaning foster parents who do good work. Who change lives.

But according to our province’s Children’s Services 2016-2017 annual report, 26 kids died in a single year while receiving services.

And I have spoken to foster parents who were instructed not to hug their foster daughters.

We know from impactful work like Connie Walker’s podcast, Finding Cleo, about the heinous, long-lasting emotional and mental effects of the 60s scoop, and the placement of Indigenous kids in non-Indigenous foster homes.

There are more Indigenous kids in care now than there were at the height of residential schools. It’s staggering.

So what? What can we do? Alongside my sadness this past week has been a feeling of complete impotence. But there are things we can do:

1. Continue to be outraged

We have witnessed what outrage can do in the States. Imagine if we directed that toward our own government. Our federal minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, Carolyn Bennett, has said the system needs to change. Let’s hold her government accountable. If we claim to be horrified by what’s happening in the US we can’t ignore the issues in our own country. Write a letter to your MP and your MLA.

2. Donate to an organization in the US or here in Canada

The First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada is just one of many organizations dedicated to supporting First Nations and Indigenous youth and families. Their website lists many ways you can help, including by making a donation here: https://fncaringsociety.com/donate.

If you’d like to support separated parents and children at the US border, you can make a donation to the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES). They provide legal services to migrant families in the hopes of reuniting them with their children. You can make a donation here.

3. For the love of whatever you believe in, teach kindness and compassion to your children.

It does not come naturally enough. I have argued with too many people who rail on about “illegals” and call asylum-seekers “criminals.”

Teach them that it’s better to be kind than to be correct. Teach them that we are a vast and prosperous nation with room to help. Teach them that human beings have a right to dignity. Identify your own biases and work against them. Teach them that humans are humans. That we all love our children. Teach them that human beings are so extraordinary that some give up everything to bring their children to safety in a different country. Teach them to help people in need.

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